Two former Parramatta Eels players are accused of harbouring semi-automatic weapons and possessing more than half-a-million dollars in cash after dramatic arrests in Sydney's Centennial Park yesterday.

Remembering Gough over Albury-Wodonga

Two days after Gough Whitlam died, parliament is abolishing what was once a key part of his partially realised grand dream for a thriving cross-border city on the banks of the Murray River.

An otherwise minor and uncontroversial bill to abolish the Albury-Wodonga Development Corporation became a new moment to celebrate Whitlam's legacy and remind parliament that there's still plenty more to do in the unique experiment in interstate co-operation.

The corporation was set up in 1973 to acquire vast tracts of land in the designated growth region. It's been steadily selling the land down, under Labor and coalition governments, and the little that's left will now be handled by the Canberra bureaucracy.

Labor's house leader Tony Burke said it was extraordinary that in this of all weeks parliament should be dealing with a matter that dealt squarely with the Whitlam legacy.

Building thriving regional centres was part of his vision and part of his famous "It's Time" 1972 election campaign speech.

The dream was not fully realised.

Whitlam had imagined a centre of 300,000 people; in fact, its population has risen from 38,000 to about 100,000. Nor had his dream of a great university straddling both sides of the river border come about.